The Madison players were on rock patrol. Brennan Marshall of Hudson played DJ. The Britton Deerfield players pulled sleds.
That’s how the first day of practice went for Lenawee County’s 12 high school football programs as fall sports began, with most local teams running one, two, or even three practices throughout the day.
“It’s like Christmas morning for a football coach,” Hudson coach Dan Rogers said as his Tigers left the weight room and entered the practice field for the first official day of practice.
There aren’t many surprises on the first day of practice these days. Coaches spend a lot of time with their players during the offseason, including voluntary workouts, training camp, 7-on-7 drills and weight lifting. By the first day of practice, most coaches have at least a preliminary roster.
“It’s different than it used to be,” Rogers said. “The players are here a lot. We spend a lot of time with them in the summer.”
It was still an interesting day.
With Hudson, the Tigers have two 1,000-yard rushers in Beckett McCaskey and Marshall. Marshall not only helped his teammates practice, but also made sure the playlist played as background music when Hudson opened his season.
In Madison, players and coaches took a long walk around their new practice field, picking up loose rocks, some of which required a shovel to get them out of the dirt.
“This is a first,” said Madison coach Scott Gallagher.
Once the field was in good condition, the players did agility drills to warm up and immediately began working on special teams before going on offense. Almost all of the practices were fast paced, as the players were constantly moving from station to station and drill to drill.
Although any coach would say they would like more players for football, numbers didn’t seem to be an issue for any team in the county. Morenci plans to field a JV team for the first time in three seasons.
With only 19 players, Clinton has one of the smallest rosters in years.
“We don’t have as much room for error as some teams might,” Clinton head coach Casey Randolph said.
Onsted head coach Aaron Amthor reminded his players of a painful reality from last season. The Wildcats were just a few points away from making the playoffs and instead finished the season 2-7.
These included a one-point loss to Napoleon and two-point losses to Hillsdale and Madison.
“We lost those close games,” Amthor said. “Those were the games we needed to get into the playoffs. We have to stay positive and work on ourselves mentally and physically first. The other team was better than us in the last minutes of the game. We have to be better and win close games.”
Britton Deerfield used a new technique in one of his practices: the players pulled sleds with weights across the practice field.
“We do a little bit of training,” Patriot head coach Erik Johnson said. “We do a lot of training in the summer, but the first week the kids still have to get in shape.”
Sand Creek is joining new conferences this season, which has created some excitement in the schedule.
“We’ve played with the same players since we were young,” said Ivan Wilkinson of Sand Creek. “It’s exciting to play against someone new.”
Adrian’s players wore the Guardian caps on top of their helmets. According to head coach Joel Przygodski, this practice was introduced last year and will continue this year.
“We practiced with them last year,” Przygodski said. “We’ll wear them next week at our practice game. It’s just for practice. We haven’t had any problems with concussions yet, but the Guardian Caps reduce them. It’s a little precaution we can take.”
Tecumseh had more players than any other school in the area – about 100. Head coach Greg Dolson said that affects grades 9-12 because they plan to field a freshman team this season to compete alongside the junior and varsity teams, but practices will be held together.
“We switched to it a few years ago,” Dolson said. “I prefer it that way.”
It was Harry Bailey’s first day as head coach of Addison. The Panthers had just over 40 players wearing helmets on Monday.
“We’re going to work on some basic formations on offense and defense,” Bailey said. “We’ve been running and lifting weights all summer.”
Ten of the district schools had their first practice at home. Blissfield opened the season at Camp Miakonda in Sylvania, Ohio, a tradition that began several years ago. Lenawee Christian and new head coach Josh Powers took his team north for the first practices of the season.
